Canadian Lawyer InHouse

3 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JULY/AUGUST 2018 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse Director/Group Publisher: Karen Lorimer karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com Managing Editor: Jennifer Brown jen.brown@thomsonreuters.com Copy Editor: Patricia Cancilla Art Director: Steve Maver Account Co-ordinator: Catherine Giles Sales and Business Development Consultant, Strategy and Business Development: Ivan Ivanovitch ivan.ivanovitch@tr.com 416-887-4300 Sales Manager: Paul Burton paul.burton@tr.com 416-649-9928 Business Development Consultant: Kimberlee Pascoe kimberlee.pascoe@tr.com 416-996-1739 Account Executive: Steffanie Munroe steffanie.munroe@tr.com 416-315-5879 Canadian Lawyer InHouse is published 6 times a year by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd., One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd., Toronto ON. M1T 3V4 (416) 298-5141. Fax : 416-649-7870 Web: www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups/3380194 Twitter: @CLInHouse Editorial advisory board: Sanjeev Dhawan, Hydro One Networks Inc.; Jonathan Lau, Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario; Fernando Garcia, CargoJet; Joe Bradford, Bradford Professional Corp. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reprinted without written permission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Canadian Lawyer InHouse disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this publication and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reliance upon information in this publication. Publications Mail Agreement #40766500 ISSN 1921-9563 Copyright © 2018 H.S.T. Registration #R121349799 To subscribe or change addresses Call (416) 649-9585 Fax (416) 649-7870 or e-mail Keith Fulford at keith.fulford@thomsonreuters.com RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESS TO: CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd., Toronto ON. M1T 3V4 By Jennifer Brown Editor's Box SEND YOUR news AND story ideas TO jen.brown@thomsonreuters.com @CLInHouse @canadianlawyerinhouse Partnering for innovation and risk mitigation I n the push to embrace technology, lawyers, and perhaps in-house lawyers especially, find themselves caught in the middle of trying to adopt new tools and processes to help them get more work done efficiently, but at the same time weighing the risks of doing work in ways that may seem risky or too far ahead of what external counsel are offering in the way of advice. In our 13 th Annual GC Roundtable (see page 16), the Bank of Canada's Jeremy Farr says he doesn't think most external lawyers fully understand the role an in-house lawyer plays, which is to yes, be a risk manager, but also figure out how to get to the business objective without getting in the way of the business. Legal can't hold back business and, certainly when it comes to cost containment anymore, the C-suite is less accepting of the answer that "legal is different." First and foremost, Farr says, he is the risk-management/second-line-of-defence/challenge- conventional-thinking person at the Bank of Canada. "You have to get your head in that space because you really spend a lot more of your day doing that than anything else." Knowing that, external legal providers should take careful note and start challenging conventional thinking more often themselves, whether it's about the advice their clients are seeking on a legal matter or in pushing ahead with adoption of tools such as AI on due diligence and other matters where it is being proven to speed up projects and save clients money. "The biggest thing I'd like to see is them help me in that risk allocation trade-off — don't just give me a laundry list of what the issues are — I want the perspective of where can I be comfortable and where should I really be, knowing that the objective is to get the project done," Farr says. Beth Gearing of McKesson (Rexall) also notes that while law firms are good at issue identification, general counsel have to talk to their business leads and give sound advice on the probability something will happen but that when she asks external to rank the risk low, medium and high — they are often reluctant to do that. As companies and law firms alike look to innovate both in their business and in their legal departments, law firms will be challenged to bring new solutions to the table and a mindset to match. Both Shelley Babin of Ontario Power Generation and Gordon Ackroyd of SecureKey Technologies note that what they like that they are seeing from some law firms is that where they don't have their own tech expertise they are partnering with legal tech entrepreneurs to bring the intelligence and solutions to the table. In their own in-house departments, they are recruiting different "non-law" talent in the form of data analytics professionals and legal operations professionals to bring new ideas to the table. So, when they see their law firms acknowledging a skills gap by partnering with others, they see a strength there. They know the risk is still being mitigated, but the innovation is also being embraced. IH

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